Regarding net neutrality:
If major ISPs start implementing paid access/tiering as most observers fear, this doesn’t just affect the US - It affects the whole world.
Companies that would have been born in the US will now be unable to launch and/or succeed in that critical market and will therefore never come into existence for the rest of the world. The next Facebook, Google, Uber etc will be snuffed out before they even begin.
At the very least it could put a real chill in the air for Silicon Valley and the US startup/tech ecosystem that produces so many amazing companies.
Further, the rest of the world’s corrupt right wing governments will now feel emboldened to pass the same laws In their respective countries.
As usual, America sneezes and the rest of the world gets #manflu.
More broadly speaking:
In so many practical ways, critical factors/systems of the established world order that were leading us to greater and greater productivity and prosperity are now being dismantled. Health, education, a free and open internet, the UN, Brexit, a thriving US middle class and yes, even America’s status as a global leader. Without these fundamentals I sincerely worry about our shared future.
To be clear, these effects won’t be felt in just a few years.
Take the US itself as an example. Trump didn’t come out of nowhere. He’s the result of decades of Fox News propaganda, a long-term rigged economy and a dismantled education+healthcare system that created a great many uneducated and desperate people.
Similarly (and in many ways as an extension of the US situation) we are now seeing a slow unraveling of the ingredients that have lead to relative global stability since World War 2. This has a chance to one day lead to systemic failures and may cause more frequent outlier events (e.g major wars, shifting of alliances, major dictators etc)
Or maybe, I’m being an alarmist and a pessimist. I hope so.
Side note: It’s funny, I started this post with the intention to say I didn’t have much new or useful to say about the net neutrality decision. I guess I had a lot to say.